Personal

In the past, I often found myself wondering how some of my websites would perform when accessed from a low bandwidth connection. Unfortunately, I had no convenient way to test such a scenario, so I usually just forgot about the idea. I recently found myself in a similar scenario at work, and my searches returned a useful tool, Speed Simulator, by Vikas Patial: Speed simulator is a simple throttling proxy which allows you to see how your site behaves under different connection speeds. It was written by me to test AJAX/Flash loaders and see how much my time took to load. You can simulate various speeds like that of a modem or a ADSL. A pre delay function is also there … Read more

When I write for this blog, I don’t always write a post from start to finish, and publish it immediately. Usually, I have to review it multiple times myself, and in certain cases, I decide I want someone else to take a look at it too. In these cases, I typically send the post to one of my friends first, and I await their feedback. At the end of the day, their input allows me to ensure that my content meets a certain standard of quality. Given the significance of their aid, I felt I needed a way to publically thank them, per post. Faced with that idea, I did what any WordPress user would do – I looked for a … Read more

Having been a gamer since my teenage years, I’m pretty familiar with representing myself in a virtual world. While some games offers customization of an avatar, the most common element is usually a username, also known as a gaming handle. When other players encounter you in this online world, they know you by your handle, not your real-life name. Over the years, I came to realize that my online personna could sometimes find its way into the real world, with undesirable results. The first situation I’m going to describe revolves around the handle. When creating gaming handles, I now know to exercise caution, as the name may be seen in a context that isn’t… appropriate. I have personally experienced this … Read more

In a post titled New Folder Shortcut in Windows, I explained how accelerator keys could speed up the process of creating new folders. The key combination that needs to be pressed depends on which letters are underlined in the Windows menu; however, starting with Vista, Microsoft decided to hide these hints, by default. You can still use the key combinations if you know them, but if you don’t, here’s how to make to the underlined letters always visible in Windows 7: Click Start, and launch the Control Panel. Click Ease of Access. Click Change how your keyboard works. Locate the Make it easier to use keyboard shortcuts section. Enable the Underline keyboard shortcuts and access keys checkbox. Click OK. That’s … Read more

In my youth, I took to video games like most adolescent males did – the habit continued into my adult life. As I aged, the time investment gradually decreased, but never disappeared. I played all sorts of games, but seemed to prefer first person shooters and strategy games, above all. Despite my gaming experience, there is one first person shooter that I prefer over all the others. As it turns out, I’m not referring to a video game, but instead… the sport known as Paintball: Paintball is a sport first played in 1981 in the U.S. state of New Hampshire, in which players compete, in teams or individually, to eliminate opponents by hitting them with capsules containing paint (referred to as … Read more

On one particular work day, I decided to go shopping for some groceries with a coworker. It is something we actually do fairly regularly, as we work in the heart of downtown Montreal, where stores are abundant and easily accessible. After visiting a mainstream grocery store, we decided to visit an organic produce shop. Not a random one, mind you – as my mother just-so-happens to work there during the day. Given that the store is so close to where I work, I have a tendency to drop by fairly often. As such, I know the owners and other employees to a degree, and we get along pretty well. They even started giving me a 15% discount on everything I buy, … Read more

Ever wished you could go back to an old version of a particular application? Often times, as software companies release new versions, they remove the ability to download older versions. They may also choose to drop support for such versions, in the long run. Usually, upgrading software is a good idea: more bugs are fixed, new features are introduced, all of that fun stuff. In some cases, however, features are unexpectedly removed, or there are performance problems that result from the update. In these scenarios, I consider it valid to seek out older versions. Whenever I found myself in these situations in the past, I would search for websites that offered the old version. I didn’t always succeed, particularly because … Read more

Ever looked at a logo, and wondered what font the designer used? From an image alone, identifying the specific font can be difficult, particularly if it isn’t among those commonly seen on the web. Thankfully, a web service titled “WhatTheFont” facilitates this very scenario, while also allowing users to buy the font, once identified. Below are screenshots revealing how to use the service, with the Google logo uploaded as an example. As the above image illustrates, the service is pretty good at identifying characters, but it isn’t perfect. It asks the user to identify specific letters, eliminating the risk of false assumptions. Once the user validation step is done, the search results are shown. Clicking on any of the search results will bring … Read more

All over the web, countless images can be seen. For the longest time, I took the presence of images for granted. That is, until I found an image I really liked, to the point where I wanted to know where it originated. My intention was to seek out additional images from the same photographer. Alas, I soon discovered that finding an image based solely on the visual content isn’t very straightforward. Back then, I was unable to find the source. To simulate the problem I had, consider this image: If I didn’t link to the photographer’s page, or even mention his name, how would you know where the image came from? Sure, the filename can be a hint, but it … Read more

When I went to use Google Chrome yesterday, I noticed the following AdBlock plugin notice: After reading it, I realized it was one of the most polite notices I’d ever read. It also had a sense a humor that I usually only expected to see in Google-authored pages and applications. Good job, Michael, and everyone else at AdBlock. NOTE: As a web developer, I am very hesitant to use ad blockers, as ads are an important source of income for website owners. I usually only enable them when I reach a site that I feel is completely obnoxious with their placement and overall use of ads.